Michael Dirda

From the prolifically gifted Pamela Hansford Johnson, forgotten peer of Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark, comes "a maliciously witty account of literary skulduggery and lofty pretensions, set in Johnson's beloved Bruges." (The Telegraph) It's not easy being a genius. Just ask Daniel Skipton, the greatest--or, let us say, the most under-recognized--novelist of his generation. Skipton is only a few revisions away from finishing his masterpiece: a satire of literary London that will humiliate his enemies and make him as famous, and as rich, as he deserves. Yet, in the meantime, he is forced to scrape by in obscurity and self-imposed exile amid the deserted canals of Bruges, barely surviving on a regimen of blackmail, bullying, persistence, and native charm. One afternoon at a local cafe, he encounters the acclaimed playwright Dorothy Merlin and her entourage--worldly tourists on the lookout for erotic adventure and in need of a local guide. Soon they are joined by an even juicier target, a Venetian count who dreams of singing on the English stage and who will spend anything to make his dream come true. Or so he leads Skipton to believe. Too long out of print in the U.S., Pamela Hansford Johnson's comic masterpiece The Unspeakable Skipton belongs on the shelf beside the best work of Nancy Mitford or Muriel Spark. As Michael Dirda writes in his foreword, it is "a dark chocolate treat, deliciously witty and bittersweet."

A passionate lifelong fan of the Sherlock Holmes adventures, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda is a member of The Baker Street Irregulars--the most famous and romantic of all Sherlockian groups. Combining memoir and appreciation, On Conan Doyle is a highly engaging personal introduction to Holmes's creator, as well as a rare insider's account of the curiously delightful activities and playful scholarship of The Baker Street Irregulars. On Conan Doyle is a much-needed celebration of Arthur Conan Doyle's genius for every kind of storytelling.

This is not your father's list of classics. In these delightful essays, Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Dirda introduces nearly ninety of the world's most entertaining books. Writing with affection as well as authority, Dirda covers masterpieces of fantasy and science fiction, horror and adventure, as well as epics, history, essay, and children's literature. Organized thematically, these are works that have shaped our imaginations. "Love's Mysteries" moves from Sappho and Arthurian romance to Soren Kierkegaard and Georgette Heyer. In other categories, Dirda discusses not only Dracula and Sherlock Holmes but also the Tao Te Ching and Icelandic sagas, Frederick Douglass and Fowler's "Modern English Usage". Whether writing about Petronius or Perelman, Dirda makes literature come alive. "Classics for Pleasure" is a perfect companion for any reading group or lover of books.

"As warm and stimulating as a library to which one returns again and again."--Chicago Tribune (Editor's Choice)While books contain insights into our selves and the world, it takes a conversation--between the author and the reader, or between two readers--to bring them fully to life. Drawing on sources as diverse as Dr. Seuss and Simone Weil, P. G. Wodehouse and Isaiah Berlin, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda shows how the wit, wisdom, and enchantment of the written word informs and enriches nearly every aspect of life, from education and work to love and death. Organized by significant life events and abounding with quotations from great writers and thinkers, Book by Book showcases Dirda's capacious love for and understanding of books. Favoring showing as much as telling, Dirda draws us deeper into the classics, as well as lesser-known works of literature, history, and philosophy, always with an eye to how we might better understand our lives.

Surveying the dizzying universe of classic books, Michael Dirda, the Pulitzer Prize-winning literary essayist, proves himself to be one of the most engaging critics of our time and great fun to read. Opening with an impassioned critique of modern reading habits, he then presents many of the great, and idiosyncratic, writers he loves most. In this showcase of one hundred of the world's most astonishing books, Dirda covers a remarkable range of literature, including popular genres such as the detective novel and ghost story, while never neglecting the deeper satisfactions of sometimes overlooked classics. Short-listed for the "Los Angeles Times" Book Award for criticism, "Bound to Please" is a glorious celebration of just how much fun reading can be."

The memoirs of a Pulitzer Prize-winning literary journalist and critic discusses his childhood and education in small-town Ohio, his colorful family and friends, and his voracious appetite for reading. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

Intimate, humerous and insightful, this collection of essays - from the book critic of the Washington Post and winner of the 1993 Pulitzer prize for criticism - range from a first reading of Beckett at high-school to an obsession with Lolita, chronicling a lifetime of literary enjoyment.